“Don’t talk about religion and politics.” U.S. adults are taking this advice only about the former.
A recent Gallup survey asked respondents to answer the following open-ended question: “Thinking about the conversations you had in the past week with friends or family, what are the major things you recall talking about?”
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Only 4% of U.S. adults said religion was a significant conversation topic for them in the past week, which equaled those who discussed weather, life in general, sports and cooking / dinner / food / restaurants.
Women (5%) were slightly more likely than men (4%) to say religion was a “major thing” they conversed about, while those 35 and older (5%) were more likely than those under 35 (4%), and Republicans (7%) were more likely than independents (4%) or Democrats (3%).
These differences, however, were either right at or within the plus-minus 4% margin of error.
By contrast, politics was six times more likely to be a major topic of conversation, with 24% of respondents affirming this (second only to family matters at 46%).
Of those who discussed politics, 18% had general conversations on the subject, while 6% specifically addressed Donald Trump and 1% the government.
“Younger adults are much less likely than older adults to talk about political matters with friends and family,” the report said. “Just 12% of young adults (those between the ages of 18 and 34) discuss politics, compared with 25% of middle-aged adults (35 to 54 years old), and 33% of those aged 55 and older. College graduates are twice as likely to discuss politics as those who did not graduate from college, 36% to 18%.”
The full report is available here.
This article originally appeared on EthicsDaily.com.
